As the national unemployment rate hovers near 10%, some companies are starting to eye job-hungry areas of the country as prime candidates for the kind of outsourced work that once would have gone overseas.
Dubbed "ruralsourcing," "rural outsourcing" and "onshoring," the practice relies on two simple premises: Smaller towns need jobs, and they offer a cheaper cost of living than urban centers. So businesses that outsource work to these areas can expect to pay less -- rates are often as much as 25% to 50% lower -- than if they were hiring urbanites with comparable skills.
In response, a new crop of outsourcing startups are popping up with development centers in places like Joplin, Mo., and Eveleth, Minn., where hundreds of employees crank out software code or offer IT support for large corporate clients.
"It's extremely timely given our economic climate," says Mary Lacity, an information systems professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis who has written 12 books on outsourcing. "And I think there's a demand for it."
Compared with the estimated $60-billion-a-year offshoring industry, rural outsourcing remains just a blip on the radar. Yet the strategy is becoming a more popular option for businesses that are trying to stretch their budgets.
Source: CNN Money
Full article: http://money.cnn.com/2010/07/08/smallbusiness/rural_onshoring/
No comments:
Post a Comment